And there you have it. The Times is now reporting that Russia feels it has done enough:

President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia agreed on Tuesday to the terms of a cease-fire that could end the clashes in Georgia, saying Russia had “punished” Georgia enough for its aggression against the separatist enclave of South Ossetia.

A clear tell in all this is who the news conference was with: French President Nicholas Sarkozy. Bush stayed away, preferring to address the conflict at a cautious remove.

The more I think about it, the more I have to believe that at some point earlier on Moscow sent the Bush administration, and particularly the State department, some kind of signal that it would sign on to the fourth round of sanctions on Iran.

Shy of such an assurance, the US’s actions don’t make sense—or at any rate, without one I have a hard time believing that the Rice camp would have won out over Cheney’s call for more aggressive action.